Monday, 28 January 2013

At the International Congress on Medieval
Studies at Kalamazoo, May 9-12, 2013. DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and
Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion) are sponsoring four sessions. Being
a medieval conference the bulk of the material is medieval, the only early
modern paper is that being given by Melanie Schuessler --“At Hir Passing to the
Quene”: Wardrobes of Sixteenth-Century Ladies
in Waiting. Full details of the Congress can be found on the website http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/index.html

Friday, 3:30 p.m., Fetzer 1005
Session 308: Dress and Textiles II: How Shall a Man Be Armed? (Demonstration)
Sponsor: DISTAFF
--Evolution of Armor during the Hundred Years War - Liz Johnson, La Belle Compagnie
--Members of La Belle Compagnie, a living history organization focusing on
English life during the period of the Hundred Years War, will dress four
representative English “knights” (from approximately 1350, 1380, 1415, and
1450) in historically accurate reproduction armor to illustrate trends in armor
design and techniques over this period. The presentation will include
documentary, pictorial, and material evidence, supplemented by the knights’
feedback on the practical experience of wearing and working in each type of
armor. The knights: James
Barker, La Belle Compagnie; Thomas Taylor, La Belle Compagnie; Bob Charrette,
La Belle Compagnie; and Jeff Johnson, La Belle Compagnie.

Friday evening, 5:30 p.m. Fetzer 1035
DISTAFF Medieval Dress/Textile Arts Display and Demonstration
--A display of textile and dress items, handmade using medieval methods and
materials. Items will include textiles, decorative treatments, garments, dress
accessories, and armor. Exhibitors will demonstrate techniques and be available
to discuss the use of historic evidence in reproducing artifacts of medieval
culture.

Monday, 14 January 2013

The term muff does not appear in English until the last quarter of the
16th century, and the OED(2012) gives its probable
origins as from the Middle Dutch, mof and moffel or the Middle French moufle. Cunnington(1970) comments that
earlier these were called snufskin, snowskin and skimskyn, the term snuffskin
is used by Cotgrave(1611) in his definition of
the French word contenance, “one of their snuffskins or muffes, so called in
times past.” Harrison(1577) wrote that muffs,
together with masks, fans and wigs were, “first devised and used in Italy by
Curtezans, and from thence brought into France and there received of the best
sort for gallant ornaments, & from thence came into England about the time
of the Massacar in Paris.” The reference is to the 1572 Bartholomew’s Day
Massacre.

Sixteenth century

Queen Elizabeth I’s skinners appear to have made muffs for her, though
they are in the records as snuffskyns. Adam Bland was paid for muffs, in 1583
for “furring of a snufskyn of heare colour satten embrauderid with three blake
jennet skins”, and in 1585 for “furring of a snufskyn of blake velat furred
with fower grey skinnes and edged with one luzarne skynne.” (Arnold, 1988)Arnold gives jennet as a type of civet cat and luzarne as lynx, she
quotes from Minsheu (1617) that “Lucerns... the
bigness of a wolfe...mayle like a cat...bred in Muscovie and Russia” and
“Genets...a beast... of the nature of a cat...the blacke the more pretious
furre, having blacke spots upon it hardly to be seen.” There is an excellent
illustration of a muff in the portrait of Eleanor Verney (Mrs William Palmer)
painted around 1585-90, it is lined with some russet coloured fur and the outer
is heavily embroidered with pearls in a design Arnold (1988) believes to be from
Whitney’s A choice of emblems,
published in 1586. Another example of an Elizabethan muff can be seen on the lower
picture in this valance from the
Victoria and Albert Museum.

Seventeenth century

Hollar - Muff with brocade or embroidery

By the seventeenth century the fashion for muffs was extremely well
established in England, and they were worn not only by women, but by men.
Prince Henry’s Wardrobe accounts record he had a least two, “Embroidering two
muffs, viz. one of cloth of silver embroidered with purls, plates and Venice
twists of silver and gold; the other black satten embroidered, with black silk
and bugles, viz. for one £7, the other 60s” (Cunnington, 1972). After the
Restoration Pepys used a muff saying,
“This day I first did wear a muffe,
being my wife’s last year’s muffe, and now I have bought her a new one, this
serves me very well.” He also bought himself one at the
Old Exchange in February 1665/6, and gave another to his mother pretending that it
was from his wife.Ribeiro(1986) comments on Anthony
Woods 1663 diatribe on the “strange effeminate age when men strive to imitate
women in their apparel,” listing muffs among the examples of this and stating
that even the king’s soldiers wore muffs, though it seems unlikely.

Fashionable women used muffs throughout the cold seasons, of the 26
plates of Englishwomen published in Hollar’s 1640 Ornatus Muliebris, no less than seven are carrying muffs, six
of which appear to have exteriors entirely of fur, and in his four seasons of
1644 both spring and winter of the three-quarter length figures have a muff. As
can be seen from the three illustrations which are shown here, Hollar liked
drawing muffs. A wide range of furs were used for them, and James Smith in 1658
extolled the English rabbit over the foreign sable, “Here is an English conny
furr, Rushia hath no such stuffe, Which for to keep your fingers warme, Excells
your sable muffe.”

By the end of the
seventeenth century muffs were still around, but not as common as previously,
and they had reduced considerably in size. The Spectator in 1711 commented
that, “Last year’s little muffs had straggled into these parts (the country)
and all the women of fashion were cutting their old muffs in two.”(Cunnington,
1972)

Arnold, J., 1988. Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe
unlock'd. Leeds: Maney.

Cotgrave, R.,
1611. A Dictionarie of the French and English tongues. London: Islip.

Thursday, 10 January 2013

Cloaks are among the oldest
garments. It is thought that the 5300 year old Otzi was wearing some form of
grass cloak, though the conjectural shape of the garment has been disputed.(Klaus 2009)On the war panel of the Standard
of Ur in the British Museum, which dates to about
2600-2400 BC soldiers in cloaks fastened at the neck can clearly be seen.

Felipe IV of Spain c.1627

By the early modern period cloaks were commonplace items of
clothing, and for men from the mid 16th to the mid 17th
centuries they were also fashion items. Cloaks rarely appear in illustrations
of working men, though it has been commented that they are found in the wills
and probate inventories of husbandmen and tradesmen. (Morris 2000). But it you want to see how common they were in the mid 17th century just have a look at the engraving of the Royal Exchange by Hollar. It is interesting to note that the almsmen of the London Mercers Company were,
in 1609, to be provided with a new gown every three years, “provided that they
be enjoined not to go forth in cloaks but in gowns as other almsmen about the
town do.” (Cunnington 1978) This would seem to
indicate that by the beginning of the seventeenth century the clothing of
almsmen was being fossilised into an old fashioned form, whereas the cloaks,
even at this level of society, were fashionable. Plain commonplace cloaks tend
not to survive unless they are associated with someone special, for example the
pilgrim
cloak of Stephan Praun III. Praun was a member of a
prominent Nuremburg family and obtained the cloak on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1571, the
garment is now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremburg.

Among the fashionable cloaks often formed part of a suit of
clothes, many of the suits Charles I paid for during the period 1633-35 were
suits, consisting of doublet, breeches and cloak, for example for £42 15s 5d (one
of his cheapest suits) he got, “a suite of Cinnamond cullor cloth, all drawne with silver
and silk buttons, lined with seagreene tabie, a cloke of the same cloth lined
with plush turned up with buttons and loope lace on the breast” (Strong 1980)Compare the cost of Charles’s cheap suit with
James Master Esq of Yotes Court who paid in 1647-8, £3 15s 0d just for the
making of “a sad colour cloath sute and a grey riding cloak.” (C. W. Cunnington 1972) Of this type of
three piece suit very few survive, but the Victoria
and Albert Museum has a beautiful yellow satin outfit dating to 1635-45.

As is usual Philip Stubbes had a go at cloaks in his Anatomy
of Abuses(Stubbes 1583), difficult to find
an item of fashion he didn’t disapprove of. What he said was, in part, “They
have clokes... of dyverse and sundry colors ...whereof some be of the Spanish,
French and Dutch fashions. Some short, scarcely reaching to the girdlestead,
some to the knee and othersome trailing upon the ground (almost) liker gowne than
clokes. ... some have sleeves.. some have hoods... some are hanged with points
and tassels...” He does go on a bit. So in length the cloaks range from a short
waist length cape as in the engraving of the Duke
of Savoy, through hip length as in the Van Dyck portrait of the brothers
John and
Bernard Stuart, to a knee length garment as in the portrait of Felipe
IV of Spain from 1623-4, to a full length garment. Like those of Charles I
the cloaks were usually lined, and the fastening could be none, or buttons or
tassels. Many have collars as in this example from the second half of the 16th
century in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, or the very nice red velvet example in the Museum of London
which can be worn with the collar flat or standing, unfortunately there is no
image of it on the website. (Halls 1970)

In shape cloaks at this
period are usually made in the form of a half circle, a three quarter circle or
a full circle. Patterns for six cloaks appear in Patterns of Fashion 3. (Arnold 1985). They range in date
from 1560-1620.Four are semi circular,
one is more elliptical than circular, and one is cut in panels. One had a hood.

The cloak my son wears is based on
an original from the Lauinger royal crypt, now in the Bavarian National Museum,
and dating to the mid 17th century. (Stolleis 1977) The original pattern is very simple, it
is a complete circle two metres (79 inches) across and made from four widths of
fabric each about half a metre (20 inches) wide. A neck hole is cut, very
slightly off centre as it sits higher at the back of the neck than at the
front. The collar is 46 cm. (18 inches) long at the neckline, and 23 cm (9
inches) deep at the edges. The outer edge is cut to form a very slight point,
the centre back is 25 cm (10 inches) deep.

Arnold, J. Patterns of Fashion: the cut and
construction of clothes for men and women c. 1560-1620. London: Macmillan,
1985.